1 Samuel 8:12

Captains over thousands, and captains over fifties. The largest and smallest divisions respectively of an Israelite, army. However objectionable the king's personal state might be, this would fall in with the people's wishes, for it would give them the promise of a well organised army. Not so the next clause, to ear i.e. to plough— his ground. Forced labour was one of the most unjust, oppressive, and wasteful exactions of absolute governments, and was the chief cause of the revolt of the ten tribes from Rehoboam. And yet it was the universal rule in ancient times, and in some countries it has continued even to the present day to be the law that the peasants must at certain seasons give their labour unpaid either to the proprietors or to the state. Naturally, for a nation of agriculturists to have to leave their own fields just when their presence at home was most needed to plough the king's ground and reap his harvest would be a bitter annoyance, because to the loss would be added a sense of wrong. How determinately a high-spirited nation like the Jews did resist this injustice we gather not merely from the indignation felt against Solomon's levies, but also from the reproach cast in Jehoiakim's teeth by Jeremiah, that "he used his neighbour's service without wages, and gave him not for his work" ( Jeremiah 22:13 ). To make his instruments of war. Such work must be done; but in well organised states it is paid for by means of taxes, i.e. by a money compensation in place of personal service. In semi-barbarous states forced labour is used, and the national arsenals furnished at the greatest possible expense and vexation to those compelled to labour, and loss to the national resources.